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Cabals
Cabals are sorcerer run organizations and billion-dollar corporations with international interests. Many would compare a Cabal to the mafia, in a way they are right, but even so, it is a bad analogy. Cabals are in all appearances, legit companies. At the top of hierarchy is the CEO, the head of the sorcerer family. Next comes the board of directors, composed of the CEO's family, radiating out in power from sons to brothers to nephews to cousins. Within the lower ranks you have unrelated sorcerers, half-demons, necromancers, shamans, whomever the Cabal could hire, but no vampires or werewolves. They hire other supernaturals, but only the main family's sorcerers will ever see the inside of a board room. They also have their SWAT teams, keeping pesky humans from discovering their secrets, and keep the local supernatural gangs in check. Also have their own Court Rooms, own private schools, hospitals, mental hospitals, and even their own communities and towns. A Cabal's interest in politics is minimal, and far more mundane. Yes, there are Cabal members in government, but only to support fiscal policies that benefit the Cabal. The Cabals are all about rules and codes of conduct. If a lawyer whose client went against the Cabals, or a doctor who fixed up a supernatural attacked by the Cabals, they leave them alone. Double-cross a Cabal and they wouldn't blow up your house and family. Instead, they'd have an incendiary half-demon torch the place, making it look like an electrical accident. Then a necromancer would torture your family's souls until you gave the Cabal what they wanted. In a Cabal central family, matters of succession are important. Usually it is the son of the CEO, in most cases the eldest, who will inherit the business. It should be noted that it is rare to find a Sorcerer who is not in a Cabal, a few exceptions we know of are Lucas Cortez, and Kit Bae. The death of the heir is handled through proper channels. All Cabal employee children are given the number to the Cabal's personal emergency line and told to call it instead of 9-11 in case of emergency. The Cabals prefer to avoid police involvement in any matter that may be supernatural in nature. An employee's family is told that phoning this number ensures faster response times than calling 9-11, which it does. The larger Cabals have security and paramedic teams ready to respond twenty-four hours a day. Hacking into the system, while it's possible, Cabal security is top of the line. The systems are protected by both technical and supernatural means. To hack them would require a supernatural with an inside knowledge of Cabal security systems. The Cabal keeps very good records on all supernaturals of influence and has dossiers. A Cabal always investigates the local supernaturals before building a new office. If they have minor concerns, they usually persuade the offenders to relocate. If a supernatural is being pursued by one Cabal, the best place to go for help is to another Cabal. To a Cabal, a clairvoyant is a prize beyond measure. The Cabals do not inter their dead in a recognizable cemetery. One section of the cemetery is reserved for criminals and those considered "collateral damage". The Cabals do employ intense interrogation techniques. Employment Everyone in the Cabal, high and low, pursued the same goals: gaining money and power for the Cabal. The more business they brought in, the quicker they rose in the ranks. The more profitable the company was, the more the employees received in year-end bonuses and stock options. The Cabals offer comprehensive benefits, stock options, a solid pension plan, and excellent remuneration. Cabal employees' kids are protected. Though they hire many supernaturals, for a wide array of jobs, it is basically a job for life, and you will basically be killed if you try and leave the Cabal, but there are people who hide former Cabal employees. Their are lots of benefits to being a Cabal employee such as medical coverage and will send their children to the Cabals personal private schools. Protection from other non-Cabal supernatural, but again, it is a job for life. According to Lucas Cortez, the Cabals always reward talent. Employees range from class F through A. Only class A and B employees are entitled to familial violence insurance, insurance that covers corporate investigations into criminal matters such as kidnapping, assault, murder, psychic wounding, or any other dangers one's family might face as a result of their employment with the Cabal. Unlike full-time employees, contract employees work at a Cabal from six months to a year. Also, each family hires only one witch. A Cabal witch is strictly an employee. They get paychecks, but no perks. According to Greta Enright, being a Cabal witch is a very prestigious and exclusive position. The Cabals fully acknowledge the clairvoyants' value, treating and rewarding them better than any other nonsorcerer employee. In effect, the Cabals take the clairvoyants and use them up. The Cabals offer a support group for employees sharing circumstances, but separately. They strongly discourage interaction with the employees of other Cabals. Cabals have certain record-keeping procedures, and contain a lot of personal detail. There aren't many corporations who keep records of their staff's personal situations. Nothing in a Cabal employee's life is sacred for leverage and security purposes. Cabal employees doing site reports have to fill out a preliminary report sheet. Most of the Cabal's policing force are half-demons. Acting without their consent, particularly if those actions jeopardize a current project is considered treason as is punishable by death, stated to be a very unpleasant death The son of a Cabal head is introduced to the organization at birth and, in virtually every instance, that is where he remains. However, while a son may grow up in the Cabal, he is still required to undergo formal initiation on his eighteenth birthday. Since Cabal membership is, theoretically, voluntary, it is possible for a son to refuse initiation. A Cabal son has absolute immunity. Rules According to Lucas Cortez, the Cabals had strict policies against employing any supernatural being that might mistake them for lunch. No Cabal would act with a crowd of witnesses. A member of the Cabal needs proper authorization to use magic in front of humans. Those who don't will be duly punished. It is then handled by an intra-Cabal judiciary review. Cabals have standard Cabal rules of engagement. A Cabal policy states that the Cabal have to inter their dead immediately. Justice System All criminals are entitled to a trial as it's Cabal law. A Cabal trial mirrors a human law trial at its most basic level. Lawyers present the case to judges who determine guilt or innocence and impose sentence. Criminals being released on a technicality, it's unlikely to the point of impossible. The concept of civil rights is much more narrowly defined in a Cabal court. Unlike human murder trials, a Cabal session never stretched for weeks or months. Their court days ran from eight A.M. to eight P.M. and every effort was made to finish within a day or two. Cases are presented not to a single judge or a jury, but to a panel of three judges, and the majority vote carries. The judges work a five-year term and the same three are used by all four Cabals, in a circuit-court arrangement. The men—always sorcerers, therefore always male—are selected by an intra-Cabal committee. They are lawyers nearing the end of their careers, and are paid very handsomely for their term, meaning they can retire at the end of it, so they are not beholden to the Cabals for later employment. Fifty percent of their payment is withheld until after the term is completed, and any judge found guilty of accepting bribes or otherwise compromising his position forfeits that portion. All this is intended to make the judges as impartial as possible. Opening and closing arguments are limited to ten minutes each. The lack of a jury means there's less need to explain every step in detail. Expert witnesses are allowed only when necessary. Even regular witnesses don't always need to take the stand. Breaks were as basic as the session itself, with a single fifteen-minute morning recess. In a Cabal court, there is a sentence worse than execution: execution plus an afterlife curse, which sends your soul into limbo. History All of the Cabals had censured Eve Levine, meaning that their members were forbidden to seek her teachings because she imparted dangerous spells without teaching the requisite methods of control for using them. When the Cabals' employees were being killed, the Cabals joined together and set up an intra-Cabal investigation. After the killing spree continued, every Cabal family member under thirty had been evacuated. Offices Oregon is one of the few states without a Cabal satellite office. The Cabal had an office in Atlanta, which meant they had an emergency crew there. List of Cabals * Cortez * Nast * Boyd * St. Cloud Category:Cabals